


Trajectory

by Alliterative_Albatross



Category: Disney Duck Universe, DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Episode: s02e11 Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scrooge is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 06:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18845839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alliterative_Albatross/pseuds/Alliterative_Albatross
Summary: She meets his gaze for just a brief moment, and in that moment, Scrooge reads all of the signs he’d missed over the past year. “Oh, Della,” he breathes. He’s livid, ashamed.Della is a freakin' mess.





	Trajectory

It takes Scrooge an entire year to see the signs.

* * *

On the very first night, Scrooge wanders into the den to find Della lounging with her feet splayed over the arm of the sofa. It’s been less than 12 hours since she’d blasted back into the mansion like she’d never left it, and Scrooge still feels his heart leap at seeing her here, home, alive after all this time.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, unwilling to hide his grin as she wordlessly flops over to allow him to share the sofa. He nods toward the cup of coffee that’s clutched in her hands.

Della shakes her head, spinning the mug absently between her fingers, and for a moment, she looks about as pensive as Scrooge has ever seen her. “Nah, too much to think about!” she answers finally, gazing up at him with a wide smile.

Scrooge feels something swell and burst in his chest.

“The boys are all in bed,” she continues, shifting her weight to curl into his side with her feet balled beneath her like she often had before, back when the Spear of Selene was only a half-formed sketch on the back of a pizza box and they often took the time to talk in the evenings. Scrooge wonders if it’s still as comfortable a position with her robot foot.

“I told them a bedtime story.” Della sounds simultaneously proud and a little wistful.

Scrooge teases her. “Bet they loved that! What did you tell them?”

They stay awake into the small hours of the morning, reminiscing the old adventures, swapping new ones. Della seems particularly interested in learning what the boys have been up to since she’s been away. Scrooge does his best to focus on their more recent exploits. Surely Donald should recount the shenanigans of the boys’ early childhood, whenever he returns.

* * *

Scrooge groans awake with a stiff back from lying on the sofa. It’s six am. There’s no evidence that Della had been there at all. Her blankets are folded neatly, the coffee mug put away. It scares Scrooge at first, until he wakes up enough to realize that last night’s conversation with Della hadn’t been a dream.

He rises, stretching to pop his back into alignment, deciding to chase her to wherever she might have wandered off to. After all, they’ve got years of adventures to make up for!

It’s not until the next night, or maybe even the night after, that Scrooge wonders if Della had slept at all.

* * *

“Lass!” Scrooge calls as he blows through the wide double doors that open into the kitchen.

Della gasps, whirling around with her hands outstretched as if to avoid a blow. From the floor beside her comes the distinct sound of ceramic shattering.

Della’s eyes are wide and fierce, her expression blank and her teeth bared, but her fingers, her fingers are trembling.

Scrooge blinks at her a bit, then straightens to pad carefully across the kitchen, avoiding the tiny ceramic shards that coat the floor. He takes Della’s hands, folds her fingers into his. “Lass, are you alright?”

The moment is broken, and Della snorts. “Of course, Uncle Scrooge!” she laughs, rolling her eyes are her own clumsiness. “You startled me, is all!”

Scrooge laughs with her, and then, keeping their hands clasped, pulls her out of the kitchen. “I startled you,” he teases as Della shakes her head and then enthusiastically follows him. “Just wait till you see what Huey’s found in the attic!”

* * *

“Mom, tell us about the monsters on the moon!” Dewey demands the next day.

Della’s eyes blow wide, and the light in them dims. “The moon monsters,” she starts, but her voice is distant, her expression carefully blank.

Scrooge feels something unsettle deep in his chest at her vacant expression. He rests a gently restraining hand on Dewey’s shoulder and then calls to Della. “Lass, how about the Valkyrie’s Curse -

Della shakes her head hard and finishes with a beaming smile. “- Off the island of Sparrow!” She hunkers down in front of the boys, dimming the lights to set the appropriate mood. “It was a long, cold winter. We’d sailed north in Donald’s boat to seek the lost island of the…”

Scrooge smiles as the kids crowd at her feet, the unsettled feeling from earlier completely forgotten.

* * *

“You’ve got to think, lass!” Scrooge rails, throwing his hands in the air in utter frustration, as angry at her as he’s ever been in his life. “Use that head of yours! I know you’ve got one! You cannae just run off on a whim, seeking a thrill without a thought for the consequences!” He outstretches a trembling finger over the water, where Donald’s houseboat sinks, engulfed in flames.

He fully expects Della to rise to the occasion, to look him in the eye and rattle off every good reason why she had decided to use Donald’s boat to search for the Yoruban god Shango, master of fire, water, and wind.

Instead, Della drops to the rough wooden deck of the pier. She turns her back to the water and its scene behind them, curling her knees toward her chest and staring listlessly at her mis-matched feet.

Startled, Scrooge bends down beside her, and, after a moment’s hesitation, lays a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know why,” she whispers after a long, long silence.

Behind them, the houseboat explodes.

* * *

It becomes a bit more obvious when Della starts to withdraw from him.

“Oh, I thought the boys and I would camp out on the beach, like Donnie and I did when we were their age. I’ll see you in a few, yeah?”

“Oh, were we doing family dinner tonight? I already ate burgers with Webby this afternoon. Sorry, Uncle Scrooge!”

“Oh, was the solstice today? I have a doctor’s appointment, actually. Take pictures!”

Scrooge stops her in the hallway after that last one, which frankly, he’d found insulting. A doctor’s appointment, really??

“What is going on?” he growls, looking her hard in the eyes.

Della blinks, as if his intensity had caught her off-guard. “Nothing!” she says with a flippant, blinding smile.

Scrooge isn’t buying it. “I talked to the boys, Della. You didn’t go camping at the beach last week.”

She sighs then, turning her face away. “It just feels a little too late for that, I guess.” She quirks her beak into a hopeful half-smile, then offers. “Guess I’ll just have to try a bit harder, right, Uncle Scrooge?”

Scrooge feels something relax within him. “That’s my girl.”

* * *

In the end, it’s the dreams that alert Scrooge.

She’s been home a year. A bloody year.

He happens to be up late that night, pouring over a potential business arrangement with an entertainment company out of Birdbridge when he hears the screams.

Something cold seeps through his bones, and then Scrooge is on his feet, slamming his chair back into the wall, rattling the desk with enough force that the presentation goes flying.

Della’s screams.

He finds her on that same sofa that they’d shared so many times since her miraculous return. She’s fallen off of it, is currently engaged in a fierce battle with her fleece blanket, kicking, punching, gnawing.

Scrooge thinks at first that she must be asleep. “Della,” he says softly, falling to his knees and assessing where best to touch her.

Her eyes snap open at his voice, but Scrooge knows with an immediate, chilling certainty that Della is not seeing him.

He grips her shoulders hard, forcing her to lay back down on the floor. “Della!” he calls in his gentlest, deepest voice. “Della. Look at me.”

Beneath him, Della thrashes wildly. Scrooge is afraid she’ll hurt herself. “Hey, hey, easy,” he calls again, moving slowly and carefully to reach for her cheeks. Gently, he takes Della’s face in his hands, presses as hard as he dares. To his surprise, she stills. Her eyes fall shut and her head tips back against the floor.

She’s still breathing heavily.

Scrooge feels bitter remorse rising in him. How long had Della been struggling like this?

And why hadn’t she mentioned it before?

“Hey, hey,” he croons, movements slow and voice soft, like a father would comfort his young child after bad dream. He realizes, then, that the thought really isn’t that far off the mark, and it makes something that feels suspiciously like the sour stab of grief well in his throat.

“Just,” he whispers, rubbing his fingers in tiny little circles at the planes of Della’s temples. “Just focus on my voice, lass.” Della trembles at this, tears leaking from her closed eyes, and Scrooge feels that he might break if he ever has to witness this again, his fierce, fearless Della Duck cry.

“That’s it, love. That’s it. It’s Uncle Scrooge, Della. I’m here. You’re home.”

Della trembles again, takes one shuddering breath, and then another. The tension in her muscles begins to melt, and she relaxes boneless into the floor, feet splaying in surrender. Her arms she keeps wrapped tight across her chest.

Scrooge, sensing that she’s no longer a danger to herself, slides onto his side against her. He keeps one arm wrapped around her middle, the other resting gently on her forehead, carding absently through her silky hair. “You’re okay,” he whispers, over and over again. “We’re okay.”

“I’m not,” Della croaks, cracking bleary, red-rimmed eyes to look ashamedly up at her uncle. She meets his gaze for just a brief moment, and in that moment, Scrooge reads all of the signs he’d missed over the past year. Restlessness, agitation. Sleepless nights. Guilt and withdrawal and detachment. Nightmares. Panic attacks and flashbacks.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Oh, Della,” he breathes. He’s livid, ashamed.

“I’m a freakin’ mess, Uncle Scrooge,” she confesses softly.

“Lass,” Scrooge sighs, fingers finding Della’s and twining them together. “We all are.” He reaches for her shoulder, swinging her gently upward with a steadying hand on her back. Della offers him a watery, self-conscious smile.

Scrooge twists so that he’s facing her now, one hand still in hers, the other reaching up to cup her cheek as he’d only rarely done when she’d been a tiny little duckling. She quirks a little grin at this, but doesn’t shove him away.

Scrooge looks her dead in the eyes. “But we’re going to work through it, Della,” he vows. “Together.” He squeezes her hand tight, holding her gaze with an intensity that he usually reserves for mortal enemies or miscreants misguided enough to threaten his family. “We’re going to be okay, lass. I promise you that.”


End file.
